Tammy's love affair with YouTube continues with her posting of Lewis Black's video of one of his most famous routines.
And Mark Evanier points to this article about Black about the inadequacies of customer service, a field Tammy's fiance and myself have toiled in.
And let's not forget his favorite TV show (and mine) Trailer Park Boys. Also soon to be a major motion picture (hopefully coming to the US) in October.

Updated 7:15pm EDT 9/6/06. If you read it before then, please read for additional at end:

Gail Simone issued the following yesterday:

Early this morning, the Texas home of award-winning writer/artist Lea Hernandez, my friend and co-creator of the graphic novel Killer Princesses, caught fire and burned. Half her house is now gone, and the rest is smoke-damaged. In addition, she lost at least six of her family’s beloved pets, two dogs and four cats. If you knew Lea, you’d know how devastating that is.

She’s lost a great deal of her family’s possessions, including irreplaceable art. She doesn’t yet know the full accounting of what’s been lost at this time.

Most know Lea as the brilliant creator of such works as Rumble Girls and Cathedral Child. She drew the Marvel Mangaverse PUNISHER book, and has drawn for TRANSMETROPOLITAN, among many other accomplishments. She is also the co-founder and original editor for GIRL-A-MATIC, one of the most important venues for female-friendly comics created to date.
She’s also my friend, and it’s entirely possible I wouldn’t have a career in comics if she hadn’t asked me to write Killer Princesses for her to draw.

And finally, Lea is one of the last great firebrand hellraisers in comics.

Lea has two (wonderful, amazing) special needs children and right now they need a place to stay and some clothes to wear. More than that, they need some help, and fast, in the form of donations to her paypal account. Lea’s a proud person so I’m going to ask FOR her. This is important, and a great chance to do a wonderful thing for a creator who has consistently enriched this industry we all love so much. Please, take a moment and send WHATEVER YOU CAN to Lea’s paypal account and help make this time a little bit less painful for someone who would do the same for you if the positions were reversed.

If you’re a retailer, I ask that you set up a donations jar. If you’re a creator, I ask you to think of how devastating this would be to your career and donate what you can. If you’re a reader, I’m asking you to take a moment and hit the paypal link. You’ll be doing something heroic and you’ll feel great about it, I promise.

Read what Lea had to post for updates on her LiveJournal here.

Donate (PLEASE) to her paypal account at: divalea@gmail.com

Finally, if I understand the story correctly (as told to me by Lea’s good friend and current Girl-a-matic editor), it was Lea’s daughter hearing the smoke alarm that allowed the family to get out in time, so for God’s sake, do everyone you love a favor and CHECK YOUR SMOKE ALARMS.

Thank you so much for helping. Really, any amount you can send will make a difference. That’s all I can say.

Sincerely and gratefully,
Gail Simone

Tony here again. I checked the batteries in my smoke detector, and thanks to Indiana going on Daylight Savings Time, I will start changing the battery when I change the clocks. And I just sent Ms. Hernandez $20 via PayPal. If you can send her some money, no matter the amount, please do.
Additional: I know I do a lot of kvetching here about being unemployed and the uncertain future I face as a result, but the fact is that tonight I will go to my nice comfortable bed in my home. And although it may be falling apart in some places, junked up in others, and could use a good cleaning everywhere else, it will keep me nice and safe. And I will have my lovely wife who loves me, and my 3 cats (well, I'm not sure if one or two of them love me, but hey, they're cats) Not to mention my other material possessions. Sure, Ms. Hernandez has insurance, but she and I (and anyone who's dealt with insurance) doubt that it will cover everything. Then there's getting what her 2 kids, 2 outside cats and her need right now, including art supplies to work at her trade. But that's more fortunate than 6 pets that they lost. I lost my cat 4 years ago to kidney failure, and it still hurts at times. Imagine that times 6, plus everything you have.
I don't want to be a noodge, but if like me you had a few bucks in your PayPal account that you could spare, or if money's tight if you could skip getting fast food (or similar splurge) and fix something at home enjoying what you have (home, hearth and family) and send her the money, or count your blessings and realize you when before you thought you had it tough but realize now how wealthy you truly are. Whatever you can send, please send it here. Thank you.

I never did like Labor Day.
It never really signalled the end of summer to me until recently. Usually I'd be at school a week or two before Labor Day. Maybe it was a cruel tease of the leisure days I had in the summer, knowing that I'd have to go back to the grind the next day, and for days on end. Then on those days you're thrown off kilter, thinking for the rest of the week that it's the wrong day of the week. And then there's the weasely employers who get it in their heads that because you got a day off you owe them a day of work. And new comics day is on Thursday this week.
The one thing I used to hate it throwing off was TV Guide, because the next issue to come out was the Fall Preview, which to a TV junkie was like the Christmas Catalog times a hundred. Talking about all the new shows coming out that are better than sliced bread. Of course, age and cynicism and Sturgeon's Law shows you for the most part it's b.s. but for a moment, you are amazed. And it was thicker than the other issues, and oh, all the new shows debuting and old favorites returning. But you had to pay the price. You had to wait an extra day, sometimes two, to get this treasured tome.
I also think of Garfield's thoughts on the day:
"Labor Day, Schmabor Day, what a dumb day.
First they hire some jerk, then send him away,
To celebrate work, by playing all day."
I never did like Labor Day.

I've been thinking about differences of opinion lately. One of the blogs takes shots at different comics series I like that he doesn't like, and vice versa. One time when I tried to correct him on some incorrect information he got from the Internet on a series I liked, I was accused of worshipping the writer and drinking the Kool-aid. It seems to be the nature of the Internets to argue and defend your opinion and position relentlessly, never budging an inch. But I don't wanna do that. I have some valid points as to why such and such a comic book is good, and he has his as to why it isn't. Same for the other way around. And you know what? Why should I want to change someone's mind about some form of entertainment. Just I because I like one thing and not another, and he's the opposite, that's all it means. It doesn't add or take anything from that. It's just tallies on the chalkboard.
But I will say this: I did get the Champions TP because of his touting "the heroes for the people", and enjoyed it. You might wonder why some members (Ghost Rider in particular) would join together, but the stories were told so well that it worked. Now if I could convince my friend that Batman had no reason to be on a satellite with powerful gods fighting world-threatening menaces other than the fact that was one of the most popular characters and the front office decreed it^_^...

This change of weather has made me sick again, alas. So much so that I had to beg off a family get-together with the wife's family (wasn't even feeling up to driving her the 5 miles up there, so her sister picked her up and brought her back) and spent most of the day in bed. She just got back, and I went toolin' around the Internets for a bit. In addition to feeling sick, every little thing's worrying me, even having fever dreams, so hopefully things'll get better.

Mike Norton does a pretty good summing up of the show, especially some of the weak points in the episode. Although he agreed with my assessment in my last post that it would be better than the last one, it didn't take a leap of logic to jump to that conclusion: with the cheesy Giorgio Moroder theme song (good composer for Scarface, bad here) in the first season replaced with a more bombastic, action oriented opening theme (complete with giant Dr. Doom with the FF literally in the palm of his hand) in the second. Then there was the origin story being retold (to Dick Clark, no less)
But like the other animated incarnations, there's some reservations and things I have a problem with, but it's watchable enough that I'm not cancelling my TiVo season pass to it yet. It works as an adaptation of the movie version.

Another reason why TV Guide in it's current incarnation sucks: until I read it at Ain't It Cool News, I didn't know the new Fantastic Four cartoon starts tonight at 8pm Eastern. At least it'll be better than the last one.